“To you—the truth—always.” She gave a short sigh and turned back into the wilderness of the drive. Infinite happiness shone on her face, a warm, spiritual radiance glowing through her delicate skin. Her lips were parted in a smile, a smile that seemed to flood down from her eyes, even to ripple from her glimmering hair. “Come, let us go out together, watch the sea and talk. There are snowdrops in the meadow—my March children.” The perfume of the rain-drenched cypresses breathed about them as they wound through the shrubbery. The wind shook spray from the thousand glittering fringes. Its voice was as the half-heard moan of violins. Together they came out into the meadow beyond the wavering, sun-streaked shadows of the trees. To the south the sea lifted up a band of silver towards the sky. They stood under the shadow of the wall, where the wind tossed the cypress boughs upward into sudden gestures of despair. New life seemed to breathe in the breeze. Sun and shadow played over the world. The man and the girl looked in each other’s eyes a moment and were happy. “You will tell me why you have come to me again,” Joan said. Gabriel stood as though to take the salt sea-wind into his bosom. He smiled as he spoke to her. “Because I have come by deeper truth.” “You are married?” “Yes.” “Well?” He frowned slightly and a shadow as of pain passed over his face. The girl was watching him with the calm content of one who trusts. “You shall judge,” he said, “whether I desire to do you wrong or no. I thought once that I had no right to be near you, to hear you speak to me. It is the common verdict of the world that a man may not hold another woman to be nearer to his soul than is his wife. You understand me?” “Yes,” she said, slowly, still looking in his face. “Do you remember how the stars make one feel at night?” “Well enough.” “A yearning towards all that is noble, pure, and divine. Is there any evil in such a feeling?” “How can there be?” “And there are people in the world who seem to hang like stars over one’s soul. Is there sin in desiring to be near them, to be inspired towards truth by their beauty?” “I cannot think it.” “Nor I.” “And so—?” “I desire to be near you often. You speak to me of all my heart desires to be. That is all.” “I understand,” she said, very slowly, with a strange light in her eyes—“I understand. Let it be so. Say no more.” As when the moon rises, revealing splendors dusky and magnificent in some silent plain, so this sympathy, this dual comprehension, called into sudden radiance all that was fairest in the hearts of the man and the girl. A great calm seemed to steal upon both, gradual and infinite. For them the Eternal Spirit lifted up its blessed flame. For them the roses rushed into ruddy joy. For them the sea echoed the parables of the stars. The girl had drawn closer to Gabriel; her hand brushed against his. “I have been very lonely,” she said, “and it is not good to be alone.”